Reds and Blues
by oceancity
Summary: Where Sasuke Uchiha wants two more Sarada's and Sakura has a five year plan. Of course. (happy birthday to the queen!)
1. Chapter 1

Sakura Week day 6.

\- ethereal, an AU.

note: Happy Birthday to our queen! May or may not continue this as a multi-chapter/three-shot/anthology but stay tuned. Love love,

* * *

 **Sakura Uchiha neé Haruno, a wife, mother, designer, brand ambassador, supermodel, businesswoman...**

One midsummer eve about a month ago, I rang the buzzer of a wedding-cake white Konoha Park mansion. The lady of the house, barefoot in a floral-print dress she wore not too long ago in front of national T.V., opened the door and politely held out her hand for me to shake. "Hello! My mama said you were coming," she says. "She didn't tell me you were a boy. Bubbles-chan doesn't like boys except for my papa." She pointed to the frown on the green dinosaur's face, mimicking it with her own little pout. And with that, Uchiha Sarada, three, pushed the lilac stroller with a slight huff and led the way into the sitting room.

I do not really start my interviews this way. But Uchiha Sakura neé Haruno is far from your average fashion designer. She, unlike her eccentric co-artists, is more of a multitasking modern woman, not only designing clothes exhibited at the Milan Fashion Show, but walking it herself… taking her adorable three-year-old with her.

Which is how I come to be in the Uchiha's sitting room holding a glass of white wine while Sarada helps herself to the olives and crackers while silently communicating with her favourite toy that was apparently her father's when he had been her age.

"She usually goes to bed at eight," says Sakura, scooping up her daughter for a cuddle, "but I've been at work all day and I've hardly seen her. I don't think she minds."

Haruno Sakura's story is like a post-modern fairy tail. She had been a graduate Fine Arts student , finding her foray into the world of fashion and modelling a mid-semester before graduating. At twenty-one, she was signed to the La Couer label working under the fashion dictate, Tsunade, and two years later Haruno Sakura, her eponymous label, had taken the fashion world in a covetous storm. Clawing, biting, sequin-ripping refinement. Everybody wanted to wear Haruno Sakura.

What makes the Haruno Sakura story so compelling to those who buy her clothes, may it be men or women, is that Sakura is a living, breathing proof of the transformative powers of fashion against all odds. We buy clothes because it represents a bit about who we are, and who we want to be. And her clothes says more about herself than it does to the wearer. And this mystery, putting the puzzle pieces together of her life, is exactly what sells.

The sitting room where Sakura, Sarada, her PR and I sit, runs the full-width of the house, opening on to the garden. Her decor is a cheerful mix of minimalist and colour: one table holds synthetic Plumerias (she's trying to grow some in her backyard), another bears half a Frozen-themed cake; leftovers from Sarada's party. There's an empty glass bowl on another. ("Sarada is getting a goldfish for Christmas. But we're still waiting on her daddy to take her fish shopping.") Sasuke is currently flying back from Otogakure after a great win with the Akatsukis last night while Sakura is keeping in focus. "There's still plenty to do for the collection," she says, talking about the unveiling in London on the 5th before the family flies out to Hawaii on a holiday.

* * *

Sakura is as beautiful in person as she looks in the paparazzi shots, if not, more. You expect the glossy pink-mane, perfect nails and ivory skin; but it's the almond-shaped, verdant-green eyes that takes you by surprise. She is nothing but the embodiment of all things lovely.

One thing you must know about being Sakura Haruno is the number of overlapping full-time jobs she has: wife, mother, designer, brand ambassador, supermodel, businesswoman. She says that it's not as hectic as it looks. "There's a schedule for everything. My first priority is Sarada and my husband, of course, and then the label comes after. I work the usual eight hours. I spend a lot of those experimenting with pieces and colour. It works well when I'm surrounded by creativity. After dinner, I'll catch up with e-mails and sometimes, if possible, Sasuke-kun and I will argue about which chick flick to watch. He ends up choosing some horrible horror so I just fall asleep on him."

Speaking of, the whirlwind romance of one Haruno Sakura and one Uchiha Sasuke is perhaps the most coveted relationship in the famous limelight. It has a faithful following, even seven years into their marriage. And she has no idea why.

"The first time I met Sasuke-kun was at one of his matches where he was literally shoved on the plexiglass right in front of me. There was a bit of blood and cursing and it was not romantic whatsoever."

Ino Yamanaka, her best friend and current Miss Universe runner-up says otherwise though. "It's straight from the fairytale books. You'll never get the chance to fall in love like they do." Sakura agrees. "We are soul mates."

Sakura's fairytale began farther from the fashion industry she finds herself in nowadays. In fact, she had been on the running for the coveted Katsuyu scholarship for medicine before dropping it to pursue fine arts, a move that her parents found distasteful at the time.

"They've always been very supportive of my choices up until I dropped the scholarship. I told them at dinner. Eventually, they came about. I think they were more concerned with how unaffected I was than the whole fiasco of fine arts and where's-that-going-to-get-you issue. I started modelling to prove that I had somewhat of a plan but eventually they saw my passion."

Though famous for her pastel-coloured hair and ethereal gait that earned her the title of brand ambassador for big names such as Givenchy and Coco Chanel, the then twenty year-old passionately pushed her dream through her eponymous fashion blog that got her the attention of La Couer. Tsunade Senju, a fashion tyrant and Vogue Editor believed that Sakura's potential was rooted in her spunky, fiery attitude.

She cuddled Sarada as she relayed her sentiments against emotional conservatism in the fashion industry, explicitly highlighting it's necessity in the art.

"Designing clothes is in its purest form yet. Others have remained skeptic with the progressive characteristics of design but emotionally investing in your product widens your audience range. It helps them empathise and connect."

Sakura's been known to be satirical in her earlier pieces, often working as La Couer's vicious reviewer early on in her career. She laughs at the memory saying, "I was a university student drained and super stressed, like every student with a dream. I was venting and I've apologised since."

She let Sarada lead us to the patio for afternoon tea, jotting down a five year plan in her head.

"Sasuke-kun wants two more," she said wistfully, gazing at the adorable three year-old as she rode the scooter with her little dinosaur. "I'm gonna have to retire from modelling soon if I'm ever to bust out two more though. Perhaps in five years, we'll see."

Sakura understands the pressures of a modern woman but she's surrounded herself with the most supportive kind of people that she primly catwalks over the seeming bleakness of it. Her parents live a couple of blocks from theirs but she would never ask them to pick Sarada up from school unless absolutely necessary. "We'd visit them almost always though."

Her best friend and Miss Universe runner-up, Ino Yamanaka has just been engaged and Sakura points to a balcony where a table lay with folders upon folders of "wedding mess."

Sasuke's parents live a good twenty minutes out but they often visit also and they have Sunday dinners thrice every two months at their house. She has select close friends but is nonetheless adored by all. She cannot stress the importance of a healthy balance of relationships across professional and personal.

"Sasuke-kun grounds me in my professional life. He's grounded and held-together. I can be stupidly ambitious and he tells me with frankness. I think everyone needs that. A frank person who won't sugar coat anything."

Amidst the hectic life of it all, Sakura says that she's enjoying life more than ever. As a mother, she thrives on the affections of her little girl ("I can't imagine coming home without that cheeky smile."), as a businesswoman, she finds pleasure in doing what she loves most every day of her life. As a wife, however, she laughs in jest. "I think Sasuke-kun doesn't enjoy the fact that everyone still addresses me as Haruno-san," she laughs. But she enjoys being Uchiha Sasuke's more than anything.

"I used to be inspired by other people and now it's the other way around. It's a huge responsibility, really, but I feel weightless. There's a poignant story in each person, a kind of love, a passion, a draw to be and it's our job to build each other up in this way in what we do best."

* * *

 _Sasuke's turn next? ;)_


	2. Chapter 2

I warn that I probably indulged my inner SasuSaku when it came to Sasuke's turn but I got more balls-y as the story progressed. (*whispers* how could that even be possible?) Nevertheless, I can't abandon you all now without them both in one article speaking in frivolous or smirking tones.

Behold...

* * *

 **Sasuke Uchiha, born and bred family-man with a penchant for being talented. Who knew? We all did.**

The first time I met Sasuke Uchiha, he had just won his first collegiate championship title against Sound University and he had just turned nineteen. Fast track to now, Sasuke thinks that the game had been "extremely fun" but an incredibly lethal revelation to his super expectant parents.

Sasuke Uchiha is the son of Japan's most successful businessman by the name of Fugaku Uchiha. Though he is the youngest and second by birth to an older brother, Itachi Uchiha, there was a sort of expectation from his father that he too would dine with the nobility in the reverential boardroom table of Uchiha Corporations. He had quietly allowed to acquiesce his father's wishes by taking in Business Management as his major but he was too much his mother's passionate little boy to be fully accredited for his three years of Bachelor's.

From endorsing the biggest pair of basketball shoes ever sold to his Armani-clad behind splashed on every billboard in the country, Sasuke Uchiha has more to be said about him than what he likes to say about himself...

* * *

There's a tailored modesty in the way Uchiha Sasuke reclines when he is not over-represented in his team's colours of black and red. One could say that he's a closet aficionado, but from the way he looks in casual black slacks, a Ted Baker shirt underneath a slim-fit navy blue sweater of the same name, he looks far from the undaunted captain on court. Leaning on a signature tartan coat by one Sakura Haruno, he looks relaxed and amplified to take advantage of the end of the season and enjoy the team's overpowering win against the former defending champions of Iwagakure.

The long-held rivalry between the two teams spanned way before the young captain has made his way on the professional court at twenty-one. Is it a burden then, to be the captain on the year the Akatsuki's have finally taken the title from their greatest opponent?

"I suppose," he shrugs. "But the game has evolved ever since that [rivalry], and each team has gotten stronger, better, and faster. It's anyone's game now."

For a kid who grew up in the rather affluent section of Konoha, Uchiha Sasuke never demanded nor persuaded in self-importance. His mother encouraged his love for the game and nurtured a sense of commonality and unrelenting poignance to his fellow peers that translates on court. He is a captain with a heart of a captain.

His father, on the other hand, drilled in him the kind of work ethics he expected from his children: passion, work endurance, and resilience. Mastering the art of balance and workmanship, Sasuke enrolled himself to Konoha University by his own means at eighteen before an encouragement to apply for a scholarship became his game-changer.

"It was the best game I've ever played," he says, recalling his thirty-points and fifteen turnovers against Sound University that committed him to the starting five of every scouter in the league. The rest plays on with the Uchiha. He was selected with the fourth overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Konoha Akatsukis and after hiring former player Kakashi Hatake as head coach, the Akatsukis honed on the Uchiha's unnerving passes and incredible three-pointers, having scored a career high 26 points on a first quarter match at the Conference Semifinals against the Kirigakure Tailed Beasts.

There is an air of honesty and predilection about Sasuke Uchiha that makes you think of someone wizened beyond their years but at the same time, too charismatic for their own good. We sit in their living room at The Grand at Trafalgar (I feel blessed) where he, Sakura and Sarada occupy as they stay for the fashion week in London. The Uchihas certainly make home wherever they go in their itinerant lifestyle; Sarada's customised Akatsuki jersey - of the cutest pink and green - hangs on the side of the couch where Sasuke reclines, folders of Sakura's pre-show notes lay scattered on the dining room table, and Sasuke's work-out shoes sit by the door.

Ten years has passed since Sasuke had allowed his thoughts to wander on his failed attempt to appease his father into taking on the company. But these days, he finds himself adjusting to the idea of being a businessman. Given that his own wife has managed to bloom and blossom and competently handle her own moniker brand in an industry as fastidious and deprecatory as the fashion industry, he thinks, lamely, that he could probably make his way around it too.

I ask him what he would do if he does take Sakura's advice. As if on cue, he fishes his phone from his pocket and utters an "excuse me, would you?" before leaving to take the call.

Sasuke had been a game-changer in his line of work as much as the game has progressed. Though his heart lies on the game, having Sarada has changed his perspective in his life more than he thought it would. He thrives on being a new dad despite the game's capricious nature and he couldn't help but feel that he is getting on along in years with a game as taxing as basketball.

"It was Sakura," he returns not long after and settling himself down again. "She's asking me how everything's going. What did you think I said?"

Who knew he's a front man joker too?

He shows me a photograph of Sarada at her birthday party and qualms that she's growing up too fast, a note that Uchiha Sasuke is as much a doting father as he is a daunting machine on court. He thrives on excellency in the game, waking up as early as six a.m. to workout and a strict health and eating regimen which, fortunately for him, suits his supermodel goddess-wife. His words, not mine. But he sometimes thinks that his end in the game could possibly be approaching.

He asks me about what I thought I would do if I told him that he was planning to retire.

"I could be a full-time muse," he says. And you know that his heart has always been Sakura Haruno's as much as hers is his.

"My wife always laughs about it," mentioning my previous interview about the odyssey of their fairy tale romance always permanently discussed by the common folk. "But she didn't really remember me and I had to prove a point."

Sasuke speaks of that day ("Not that ice hockey game, that was - I can't believe that was her first impression of me.") when _he_ first spotted Sakura at a basketball game at Konoha University. His best friend (and best man at his wedding) had snickered that she's the one he would end up marrying. But one _lack_ of looking at his direction like the entire stadium had been, and he knew he had finally met his match.

Sasuke leans forward and pulls out his sleek smart phone from one of his pockets before typing his complicated password that was apparently Sarada's doing. "She put a combination of all our names and days of birth." He thinks that if he could have two more of her, he would retire by thirty-five.

Uchiha Sasuke had been in the limelight at twenty-one and his fame only continues to grow and no one can take for granted that as a physical specimen, he ticks the boxes: he is all angles and planes, strong and powerful but oozing charisma and charm at every breath. It's not a wonder that he is the face of Men's Health, GQ and been named People's Sexiest Man Alive. But he is self-deprecating in his looks, often avoiding the topic of how to unravel his deferential enigma. He speaks in low tones but you can feel that his shift in perspective plays heavy in his seemingly indoctrinated nature to pursue mastery over the game.

"There's a way to play the game in enjoyment and a way to play the game to be the best," he swishes his Scotch on the rocks like we're in a James Bond movie before breathing a sigh. "Players pursue greatness while others have it thrust upon them and they lose their mental stability. They need security, relationships, a family. I've learned their great importance, especially having your own, in how you play the game better. You're faster, stronger, you're more motivated. It's what gets you going."

Uchiha Sasuke doesn't insist that there is more to him than what he has given or implied. He's still young but he's come through and will continue do so. He's weathered ups and downs of marriage, career and family and that by forty, he claims that he would have outlasted the negativity often thrown at someone whose popularity, no matter the damage control, continues to grow.

In our conversation about family, life, marriage, basketball, he recollects the moment that he got suited up for the day with a sense of contentment and happiness at where he is currently at. He'd buy a pet fish with Sarada when they return to Konoha after the show, go on a holiday for an entirety of two weeks in paradise then back to routine with Sakura on the phone checking on them twice a day, listening to his little one talk to herself and her green dinosaur about papa or mama or both, and then finally taking a deep breath and settling down when the lights are all turned off, knowing all is well.

"Grateful," he says. "Just grateful."


End file.
